20 CITE 66 : SPRING 2 0 0 6

Audited Scott Ballard Hell) and (heiit Judy Chopmon lughll exrhnnged idem tomtnnlly when her house wei being p

CORBUSIER'S SCUPPER

From Chandigarh to Colquitt Court, with a little imagination

I N T E R V I E W BY T E R R E N C E D O O D Y

A few years bask, native Houstonian Judy Chapman was living a traditional Hirer Oaks life in a traditional Hirer Oaks house on Stanmore. Then she decided she needed a change. She wanted a house that better reflected who she was, that fit with the woman she had become, not the woman she had been. Working with architect Scott Itallard, Chapman set out to build "rooms of her own." The result was like nothing she had ever lived in: a U-shaped building enclosing a side court, with metal siding, polished , on cretc floors, and windows that Chapman opens to seasonal breezes. It was deft' nitety not a Hirer Oaks traditional. Last summer, Terry Doody, who has known Chapman (or 25 years, sat down irith her and Ballard to ask inst how somebody matches a house to a personality.

CITE: Judy, why a house like this, at ibis rime in your life?

CHAPMAN: I bad always wanted to build a house. And one day I realized that I was approaching Ml and wasn't getting any

younger or richer. Sixty is the only birth-day that has ever given me pause. My River Oaks friends thought 1 was nuts.

CITE: What were your first ideas, your specifications?

CHAPMAN: When we started I didn't want to tell Scott too much. I looked at it as designing a functional piece of art, and I didn't have too many practical consider-ations, because it was just me living here. There was a real sense of freedom doing it at this stage of my life.

BALLARD: When we Inst met, you brought with you a picture of a house you liked. Northeastern style. It was striking, although restrained. Then every-thing you said after ih.il was a clue to me you wanted something different. What we ended up with was not restrained ai all,

CHAPMAN: I had no idea what the house would look like, bin it had to feel right, and I wanted to see the outdoors. At our second meeting, which was actually a

CITE 66 SPRING 2006 21

I n v

i

couple of years later, alter interruptions and trying to find property to build on, Scott started asking me all these questions that I didn't have answers to.

1 did tell liim I wanted a eontcmpo-I.M\ house with windows, bookshelves, fireplaces. I wanted a " l ive- in" kitchen with a table and a sitting area, where 1 now have the television. I wanted my laundry room downstairs and a bar. An aging friend of mine told me that I had to have a powder room at the back of the house, ott the kitchen, in addition to the one at the front, "because when you get old, you have to use the bathroom every time yon turn on the water."

I also wanted the master bedroom on the front and upstairs, so I could sleep with the windows open. I realized I could do here what I have done at the summer house I rented in Maine, hut just at a dif-ferent time of year.

BALLARD: We started with three com-pletely different floor plans for discussion purposes and evolved into a totally differ-ent plan—a U-shaped house, with an inte-

rior atrium as the focal point, with maxi-mum exterior wall space for the greatest amount of natural light, and places on the inside to ban;; Judy's art. We started in a fairly conventional way, hut when you mentioned the metal siding, I knew we could widen our explorations. I thought the small study models really turned you on to (he excitement of doing something different, more sculptural.

CHAPMAN: Till very visual. The bouse had to look right.

CITE: First it had to feel right and then look right? Is this place more tactile or visual?

CHAPMAN: Both—it's the emotion of the place, my emotion, that's what! feel.

CITE: Hid you two have any conflicts? Any dead ends?

CHAPMAN: We didn't really have any! I never lell Scott had any desires ot his own excepi to please me...

«3S2g "is ^Mm

i Top: In Judy [hojinwn'i house iVmll bnllnril AiihilGtr. 7000), u Ihlmpeil interior mill mi iiliumliiiiu' of gloss moke il possible lo look lioni lliii living loom uriass on allium into the kitchen. Above: When a ihiidstoiy library pioved too costly, o stnitwell libiaiy, oi 'kiony," was os on alternative.

22 CITE 66 : SPRING 2006

UTILITY

DING A

H : i : r j ic : if? j ' j L : "5—)i j E T ;

"KITCHEN '

• p

'

LONG SECTION ' 1 f 20 FT

PORT COCHERE

o i ic:

f u n i.

r • KITCHEN

FOUNTAIN

GRADE LEVEL PLAN 0 4 1 1 . r B >

CITE: Dues the ;MA klluw about this. Scott? Does your wile?

CHAPMAN; I did suggest as we went along i l l . I I ,i third Mor; I i bran would he cool. Scott said we couldn't afford it and went on to design a stairwell library, winch ts a real surprise, my favorite fea-ture of the house.

BALLARD: I went to the University of Texas and was educated as an engineer and an architect both. 1 actually enjoyed the engineering part more—the way things work. I he clients assignment and the limits of the budget are for me the artistic challenge. Not any "signature" look. After we decided on the "l i-stairy" and I suggested we put your office under the stairs, you were on board immediately.

CHAPMAN: I wanted a desk in a space that could be completely closed off. I'm neat about everything but my desk. The office was going to go upstairs, but we changed that during the framing.

CITE: During the framing? Are decisions and new directions like this, at this stage, normal?

BALLARD: Normally you try to make all the decisions before construction, because changes during construction usually come with a high price tag. 1 try to take advan-tages of opportunities to make "tree" changes, however, which can be done if the owner and architect are actively involved during framing and can catch things early enough.

HOOF BELOW

s

POOF BELOW

READING AREA

SCUPPE* ABOVE

ROOF BELOW OUIUAIN BSLOV

SECOND LEVEL PLAN 0 4 20 FEET

>

CHAPMAN: I was there every day and 1 could say anything to Scott. Also, the builder, Allan Edwards, was very coop erative. I even added two windows in the master bedroom after the framing was done. 1 just walked into the room and wanted to see through the wood to the ouisule.

BALLARD: My feeling is that the whole process is always all collaboration. Judy might nor be able to tell me what she wants in architectural terms, bur she wil l know it when you show it to her. She gives me her program in terms of rooms and budget, but throughout the whole process I am learning what she wants exactly and what she's open to consider. She is learning of the possibilities ol sell expression, and I am thinking dimly of how the evolving plan wi l l mass out as a structure.

CHAPMAN: The empty shape of this house is finally Scott's idea.

BALLARD: I'nt il is very import,ml to me that I am never in the position of trying to force an idea on a client. 1 try to give

(l inn choices, between what they might ihmk they wanted and something that might he mote architecturally interesting.

CITE: Judy, when I first saw this house in its finished state, I didn't think it "'looked like" you at all. This house is cool, hard-edged, monochromatic. You are warm, plush, and colorful.

CHAPMAN: \'<>t cool and monochro-matic. I say calm and peaceful, winch are things I never had in my life until my late fifties, I would say the house reflects my inner self at this time in life. I also feel it's warm and inviting. My friends have said so too; they feel that my things make it warm. The clay artist who designed the tile and sink in the guest bath, Le Beth l.ammers, and Gertrude Barnstone, who did the screens on the front door and fire-places, they added a lot. And so did Steve Dvorak, who went to Rice, who did the fireplace surrounds.

CITE: And the house number is in violet neon. Hut you have told me you that you painted the inside of the garage periwinkle for the days you might feel in sensory deprivation.

CHAPMAN: Yes, I did! Hut this house feels energizing to me, a real deliberate transition into what Scott called earlier i l l . " i inton sei n ' I fell I I MI 11 Is had i In courage to build the house I wanted and h> In II \\ nh « h.u others thought.

CITE: What do others think now?

CHAPMAN: Well, my family really likes it a lot. My severest critic now says she could live here, but another old friend calls it a " t in shack."

CITE: Do you think of the light in this house as a color/ As I su here and get used to looking at the whole place, the tones of this room come out, emerge, like the blacks and whites in an Ansel Adams photo. Is that l.iir?

BALLARD: I think so too.

CHAPMAN: As you can see on the walls, I love black and white photography.

CITE: The textures of the wood, the Lib rics, the stone surfaces are still a milted palette, just richer than I first thought. Cool and peaceful hut not monotonous. Maybe that's what is calm and energizing both. Has living here changed you?

CHAPMAN: I have become a gardener. Hut this house is a sign of changes already started in me, not then cause. 1 love look-ing out these windows. The tact that I can see through the house, from the kitchen in the hack, across the atrium.

and oui through the living room windows to the house across the street, is really cool. And my bedroom window lets me watch the sky turn, the light change, as I'm in bed. i he blinds pull up from the bottom, not down.

CITE: What's the neighborhood beyond the windows like?

CHAPMAN: It's better than anywhere else I have ever lived! Its name is Colquitt Court, and it was built as a • I. bin. i i i l l . i l siibdn ision m I lie IV.IOs. The little houses on Richmond that are now alt shops were part of the original development. The neighbors arc fabulous, and I've become the head of our civic association.

CITE: And it is all because you have these windows! This story even has a moral: Civic responsibility grows from your eyes on the street. One final thing—tell me more about the atr ium. It's a jungle out there.

BALLARD: The atrium sits right across from the slidmg-glass door/window on the stairs' landing, so the air really moves through here. It creates the house's chimney.

CITE: Does water run in? Those plants have low,) the rain.

BALLARD: Hie roofs are tilted to con-duct the water through the scupper into the pool and keep it running away from the house.

CHAPMAN: I wanted a round pool; I'd seen a picture of one. Hut the house shifted a little and a round pool would have been too big.

CITE: What's a scupper?

BALLARD: Ihe extension of the gutter. I showed Judy a picture I took ol the scupper Corhusier designed for his Stale I louse in Chandigarh, and she loved it. She always chose, as I said, the most adventurous and exciting option. You couldn't ask lor a better client.

CITE: So Corhusier's scupper has come to Colquitt Court. And Judy's smiling. I think we cm stop here. •